


End of Summer

by laufey



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 07:09:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6507691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laufey/pseuds/laufey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nine people and a cat wait for the world to end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	End of Summer

**Finland, west coast, Y0.**

DAY 14, EVENING

_Mari_  
_\- Finnish_  
_\- 11 years old_  
_\- Is mostly looking for her family_

The evening fog lay thick on the sea. The sun was still hesitantly peeking out from behind the clouds and for a moment the world seemed to be holding its breath, waiting for something to happen. For a moment the mist parted and a gangly figure emerged, limping, heading out towards the sea.

  
The figure kept a steady pace. Those were the steps of someone who knew exactly where they were going to, mist or not, and when they at long last arrived they only stopped to carefully lower a bundle they had been carrying in their arms somewhere out of vision. They grabbed the side of a shadow that on a closer look was probably a small boat and pushed it carefully and quietly into the water, stepping one foot in and using the other to kick the boat away from land. The other foot followed a little too fast and the boat lurched to its side before balancing again; the figure took a few wavering steps until it reached the middle bench, sat down and grabbed a pair of oars, letting them fall into the water with a splash.

  
"I'm going to Hille", the figure said sounding a little bit defiant, drawing back the oars and beginning to row in slow, steady strokes. "From island to island, all around Åland and then across Ålandshav" it continued, this time addressing someone else. "Then we'll follow the coast until we get there. Shh, sleep some more."

 

DAY 6, MORNING

_Bergdís "Begga" Pétursdóttir_  
_Sigurður "Siggi" Pétursson_  
_\- Icelandic_  
_\- 7 and 9 years old, siblings_  
_\- Very hard to tell apart, the older sibling is a bit taller_  
_\- Horrible_

It smelled of soap and oatmeal here in the kitchen. Anna stirred a huge pot matter-of-factly, watching the scenery outside. It was a beautiful, sunny day, the fields opened up on both sides of the house growing barley and rye. A little breeze bent the heads of crops and blue cornflowers seemed to wink at her. She tried to not think of how, come autumn, all that food would rot there unattended.

  
The gas station they had taken shelter in was cold and somehow lifeless despite hosting so many of them inside. The road was blocked in both directions and guards were stationed at the other one at all times, while the other was in direct line of vision so anyone approaching would be seen a long time before they got anywhere near. Two people started towards the building now, having ended their night watch. Anna made a note of that out of old habit: these had been that silent, bearded guy in a red coat called Aarno and Pétur, the young Icelandic man whose wife was still asleep though it was almost midday. Neither bothered for a moment to watch after their kids, who -

  
At this point her thoughts were interrupted when the door opened and closed with a slam and the very children burst in screaming something incomprehensible, as if her thoughts had somehow summoned them. A girl and a boy, one was maybe called Bega and the other Guni, but which was which she had no idea. Their parents addressed them both at the same time, always at the top of their voice, and only when the two were up to some mischief that affected their parents personally. Other times Anna had never heard them ban their children from doing anything and, she suspected, that was the main reason why they both behaved like monkeys. Worse was that right now they both had that cheeky look that never bode well in children, the look of "wait until you see how we're going to make you miserable now".

  
"We found -" one of them screamed and the other one immediately tried to shout louder: "It's a surprise, a SURPRISE!" One - was this the girl? was holding something hidden under a coat. Oh well, nothing to it. Anna bent down and grabbed a side of the coat. "Well don't keep me waiting! What is, is, is, iiiaachOO!" She tried to say something but was again interrupted by a furious sneeze and then another one, all following at the heels of the previous sneeze. Oh no, oh no no no, what had these two done now. Something in the girl's arms stirred and like answering her thoughts it made a sound very much like prrnyou.

  
Well prrn you right back, prrn you all, Anna thought and managed to shoo the kids out of the kitchen, her eyes beginning to itch. A cat was all she needed now wasn't it.

 

DAY 7, MIDDAY

_Anna Brooke_  
_\- British_  
_\- 67 years old_  
_\- Thinks young people are too soft these days_  
_\- allergic to cats_

People began to gather in what had once upon a time been the restaurant half of the gas station as Anna rolled the huge pot of porridge in on a serving trolley. Someone brought plates out and soon they were all lined up in a tidy queue, all except for the Icelanders who found the whole idea of queuing to be on the same level as the time they had had sauna: exotic but ultimately not for them. The Finns stared at them but alas, by now everyone knew the Icelanders were immune to The Stare, the fiercest weapon Finns could wield against people misbehaving in public. After the family had helped themselves things soon returned to normal and quiet talk filled the room. The cat was making the place its home and had chosen Anna as the best person around, much to her dismay.  
"Oh, scoot. Away wi-"  
ssshhrRRRRRrk

  
The whole group fell silent. They all turned to look at the radio and waited, straining their ears.  
The radio had been voiceless static for days now with the occasional burst of louder screeches that always called everyone's attention, just in case. When they had arrived there were still programs on the radio, and although that had been but a few days ago it now felt like an eternity. That time in the past when the radio still gave them news of the world outside, listing countries as they fell off the map, closing in on themselves. Then those news had disappeared and only news from Finland remained, getting sparser by the day until they, too, had come to an abrupt halt. Nobody wanted to talk about that and so they all pretended the radio wasn't even there hissing its emptiness into the room, until those times when there was a sudden change to the sound.

  
"I don't like that", said a young voice in the back of the room. A hitchhiker, or so he had been back in the days when people still let strangers into their cars and there were open roads without pileups blocking them here and there. He seemed to be made of mostly thin legs and sullen mood. "It sounds like voices", he continued when no one reacted to him at all.  
"Oh?" someone piped up - it was one of the Finns, Ella. "Can you hear what they're saying?"  
"No - well - yes. But it's all just nonsense."  
"It might not be, maybe it's just Finnish" her husband Markus replied. "You wouldn't be the first Swede to make that mistake" he added, laughing happily at his own joke.  
"I'm interested too", Ella backed him up. "Just try to imitate it if you can."  
"It's not Finnish. It's Swedish and I can understand it just fine. It's just someone saying stuff like 'why is it so cold', 'help' and-"  
"Help?" Markus sat up a little straighter. "Someone's been asking for help on the radio and you've waited all these days to tell us?"  
"It's nothing to do with us. We can't even do anything about it."  
Markus opened his mouth but his wife got in the way just in time. "That's - that's right, actually, I mean -" she gave her husband a shut-up-now -glare, "Unless this person is stating exactly where they are we can't do anything about it. Besides we don't have much food as it is and we'll need to save the gas for when we leave this place."

_Ella Peltonen_  
_\- Finnish_  
_\- 24 years old_  
_\- Thinks she's just an open and honest person_

_Markus Peltonen_  
_\- Finnish_  
_\- 22 years old_  
_\- Thinks he's hilarious_

_Daniel Karlsson_  
_\- Swedish_  
_\- 21 years old_  
_\- An annoying besserwisser_

 

DAY 11, MIDDAY

The topics of discussion were the same every day: the food storage was rapidly emptying out. The kids were up to silly business, what to do about the cat... one extra mouth didn't please Markus and Ella, even if the extra mouth was tiny and was probably hunting its own food half the time. Anna kept a stoic face though her eyes itched like mad and she had to keep blowing her nose every two minutes. She prided herself over her capability of always keeping a straight face no matter what and had only once considered an accident to happen to the cat, that one night when she had woken up to a storm of sneezes and had found her sleeping right next to her head.

  
The food question remained the biggest problem. There was nothing to hunt on the open fields except for mice and the cat was the only one interested in that kind of a meal. The sea was near enough for fishing, if they only had the equipment for it. The third option was to go and try to find more somewhere, but there was no saying whether the roads were safe or not or how wide the illness had already spread. The last piece of information they had received had been in the form of flyers dropped from a passing airplane a few days previously that stated people should stay calm and stay put where they were, and that driving was currently not safe and therefore strongly discouraged.

  
"But do we actually know that", Daniel insisted. "For all we know it could be just a way of trying to keep people from moving around and spreading the rash illness to clean areas."  
"Well if that's the case, shouldn't we do exactly as we're told? Rules exist for a reason after all. Besides we're in a clean area right now, we don't want anyone coming in with the rash either." Markus replied testily. He didn't much care for the young Swede.  
"We can't, not much longer", the Icelandic woman said. She was a tall woman with red, obviously dyed hair and quite a lot of presence. "Even if we could somehow fill the food storage there's still the other issue, namely we have jobs back home and we really can't take much more time off."

  
"That's not even a real problem", Daniel said with a lofty tone. "Iceland closed its borders days ago. You couldn't return if you tried to."  
"Of course we can", Pétur, the other tall Icelander with the second most impressive beard of the group replied. "We're Icelandic. Of course they'll let us back home", he said, stressing the word 'us'. Daniel opened his mouth, no doubt to say something infuriating, but before he could there was a loud crash somewhere behind the station.  
Everyone turned to look at the Icelandic couple as if on cue. The children were nowhere in sight. Pétur sighed, stood up and started wandering towards the origin of the sound.

_Guðrún Ólafsdóttir_  
_\- Icelandic_  
_\- 32 years old_  
_\- Comes from an important family line and takes a lot of pride in the fact_  
_\- No one outside of Iceland would know anything about it though_

_Pétur Sigurðsson_  
_\- Icelandic_  
_\- 39 years old_  
_\- Doesn't seem to get angry, ever_

 

DAY 13, EVENING

"I want to complain", Pétur said in a good natured manner as he came in from his watch. "Aarno hasn't showed up for his shifts lately, it's such a bother to have to be there all alone. Oh, soup!" He took a plate and began to fill it up, immediately forgetting about his complaint it seemed. Anna was almost finished with her portion, lost in thoughts on how to make the food last just a bit longer.

  
The kids were whispering to each other behind her back. Before she even had the time to get worried, a small hand grabbed at her hair and pulled.  
"Look, told you, her hair's really long if it's straight like -"

  
Anna didn't understand what was being said but she thought she could guess the gist of it. She threw a hopeful glance at the parents but as always, if their children's activities didn't touch them directly they just ignored whatever mischief they were up to. Anna liked to think her patience was very near neverending but these past few days had been chafing on her mind, wearing her strength down by the minute. She sneezed angrily a few times and returned her attention to dinner, food, and how to stretch two days into a week.

 

DAY 14, ELEVEN-ISH

"Where is Aarno, actually?" Markus was looking a little bit worried. "He does like to keep to himself a lot but this is a little bit strange... can anyone remember seeing him lately? Has he even come in for the meals?"  
"I don't think so... I haven't seen him for a -" Anna began but was spoken over as usual.  
"I think I saw him a few days ago, he said he was going to go fishing", Pétur said.  
"When was that? How long does fishing even take?"

  
"Not days unless you're planning to row across the Ålandshav while you're at it", Daniel said, almost under his breath. "Mind you, we could actually do that if we had a boat", he continued. "First there's the huge archipelago between Finland and Åland and from there you'd just need strong arms and a bit of luck to make it across. It would probably be useless to try to land at the south coast of Sweden though, they're just as alert as everyone else... but if one would then follow the coast southwards long enough one could easily find islands that aren't as hard to reach. Hille for example."

  
"OR we could do the smart thing and use a car. We have two, we'd all fit in them. Or we could take Aarno's truck instead and also bring our things along -"  
"And get stranded somewhere when we run out of gas. After everyone passing by filled their tanks here before we arrived, we now barely have enough to fill up the tanks of the smaller cars, let's not even think how much a truck would need -"  
"HOW ABOUT you two pipe down", Guðrún said in a tone that left no other possibilities. "We can't go anywhere just yet, first we need to know where to go. Besides, if we're planning on taking somebody's truck, don't you think we should maybe ask him first?"  
"If we just find him", Markus muttered. He didn't like being abruptly shut down.

  
Anna stood up, fighting the urge to rub her eyes. This would be a good chance to get some fresh, cat-free air.  
"I'll go. If he said he wanted to go fishing then there's only once place within walking distance that has fish in it, the sea."  
"Shouldn't someone go with you?" Ella said, sounding very much like she was dying to add "someone else than me". Anna shook her head and smiled a little, "I'll be fine. It's not far to walk." She grabbed a face mask from a side table that was marked with her name, slid it on and tightened it around her head, thinking how it was such a shame it didn't help with the allergy. She strode outside into crisp late summer air, the kind that still promised a warm day up ahead but also made no pretenses of what the following weeks would bring. Summer was over already even if people didn't realize it yet.

  
It wouldn't be hard to find the sea, it was within sight just beyond the fields. Anna picked a small road to follow and began to walk towards the water that was winking at her from behind a line of trees. Behind her without her noticing it the cat managed to go through the doors just as they were closing and began to trot after her.

 

DAY 14, MIDDAY

Only Daniel remained indoors and the room was quiet, all too quiet, Ella thought and couldn't at first figure out why. She wondered why people were so eager to go outside in the first place. So far they hadn't been found and no one had even tried to approach them but that day would come sooner or later. When it did the station would be the last defense, she thought and quickly shook the thought out of her mind. Last defense? Wasn't that a bit pessimistic of her? They wouldn't probably even be here anymore when the next people would arrive. They'd be long gone, and she quickly added "in a safe place" because something about "long gone" was giving her an unpleasant feel of impending doom. She let out a long breath and realized the reason the room was so quiet.

  
"You... did you turn off the radio?"  
Daniel didn't even look up. "It's useless. And creepy."  
"You - what - you can't know that!" Ella ran over to the radio and switched it back on.  
" - repeat, gather in Klippan for immediate evacssrrhhhhhkkkkkkk -"

  
Ella froze on the spot. Her breath seemed stuck somewhere in the back of her throat. Immediate evac...uation? Klippan, she knew where that was. Her parents used to have a summer cottage near the area. The radio was back to static noise and she felt a cold shiver move up her sides and rise to her temples, and for a moment she wanted to throw up. What if she hadn't - they would never have known -

  
"Told you, it's just useless noise." Daniel had appeared next to her while she had been in blind shock, reached over and switched the radio back off.  
Ella fought back an urge to punch him.

 

DAY 14, MIDDAY

Anna walked along the beach to the south. There was nothing here, no boats or men fishing anywhere as far as eye could see. She shrugged for lack of anything better to do and started following the coastline to the other direction. Maybe Aarno wasn't even here anymore, maybe he had decided to ditch them and try his luck somewhere else, who knew what that one was thinking. No one had probably ever heard him say anything all the time they had spent here.

  
Yes, he was a little bit unusual wasn't he? Never spent time inside, preferred to sleep in his truck, only popped indoors long enough to fill his own plate with food and then immediately disappeared. No one else seemed to pay him much attention though, and as he always did his part of work and showed up for guard duty no one needed to bother him either. Except... except lately he hadn't shown for guard duty, hadn't Pétur said something like that? If only those two little menaces hadn't distracted her right then... Pétur was the patient sort and didn't complain easily, so how many days had Aarno been gone now?

  
Anna stopped on her tracks, suddenly wanting nothing as much as to run although she didn't know exactly why, or for what reason Aarno's disappearance was alarming. Escape, now, pounded through her brain. Her knees were too bad and wouldn't take her far, her rational side mentioned, but the part that was now sounding a panic signal was entirely willing to ignore this. She shook her head and tried to laugh, but her voice came out thin and hoarse and only frightened her more. Wind rustled the rye field, almost making her jump, waves lapped at the shore. She took a step back and might have ran just then, ran blindly for as long as she could before either her lungs or knees would give up, had it not been for the cat that had managed to sneakily wind herself around her ankles.

  
WHUMP

  
For a moment she stared at the sky above. Her right ankle felt weird, not painful but she had sprained that one many enough times to know immediately what had happened. She sat up, wanting to curse out loud, and pulled the rubber boot off her foot to have a better look at it. She cast around for something to help with walking, located a small piece of wood that had possibly once been a part of a fence. It would do as a walking stick, she decided, leaning her weight on it. The fall had broken her panic, the world had returned to its normal self and now she only felt a little bit embarrassed. The cat sat her gray, fluffy bottom next to her and looked at her quizzically.

  
"Prrnyou?"  
"Yes, quite alright thank you. Achoo."

 

DAY 14, AFTERNOON

"We must leave right now!"  
"Calm down dear", Markus tried but Ella was in no calming mood. "Let's at least pack first. We don't know when the evacuation is supposed to take place -"  
"That's exactly why! We don't know, what if they're doing it right now?"  
Even Pétur seemed a little bit shaken now. "Are you sure that's all you heard, was there nothing more?"  
"It was all. If only. If only some idiot" she shot an angry look at Daniel, who was now looking even more morose than his usual self, "had not turned the radio off!"

  
"It's fine, it's fine, he wouldn't have understood Finnish anyway" Guðrún said, already shoving the children's clothes into a bag. "Main point is that now we know. Where is this... Klippu?"  
"Klippan. It's a bit south from here, we need to take a turn to right and then follow a small road to the end of a peninsula - that's Klippan. I know the area."  
"In any case we'll have to wait until Aarno returns, we can't just leave him -"  
"YES we can. He has his truck, he'll be fine!"  
"Um", Daniel said, "he won't have enough gas to go anywhere with it if-"  
"I DON'T CARE. We need to go now, right away!"  
"What about the cat", one of the children said to the other in Icelandic.  
"Sorry dears", Guðrún knelt down to talk to them both at the same time. "It's not our cat. We have to leave it here, but when we get back home we can have a cat. How about that? A gray one, just like this cat."

  
"Hm..." Pétur seemed to have something weighing on his mind, "...can we really trust that message?"  
"I know what I heard", Ella replied defensively. "Evacuation. At Klippan."  
"Well, it's just... so far all the contact we've had, everything we've been told, it's all been to keep us where we are and to stop the illness from spreading. Just... suppose they aren't trying to cleanse this area? Lure us out, line us up and shoot us?"

  
For a while everyone was quiet. Then Daniel spoke up and had clearly returned to his normal, uppity self.  
"So what? We're all going to die if we stay here. Anyway -" he added as an afterthought, "I don't think they'd waste that much ammo. They'll probably just put us on a ship and sink it if it comes to that."

 

DAY 14, AFTERNOON

The old boat shed had seen better days. It had turned gray with age and weather and its walls had bent slightly so that the whole shed looked like it was about to kneel down. The boat was no longer inside although it was clear it had originally been attached to the back wall. Anna hobbled carefully around the shoreline until the located the boat a little way away, pulled safely up out of the reach of tide. Aarno had obviously been here, Anna thought darkly, watching a few days worth of canned food stacked neatly to the front of the boat. So that's why the food had seemed to run out so fast.

  
The cat seemed nervous, constantly stopping to study the surroundings, listening, sniffing at the air, hairs up and ready to bolt any moment if Anna understood anything about cats' body language. She didn't like staying here either for some reason and was more than happy to have an excuse to finally leave and to go back where the others were and besides, she was quite hungry now. This little walk had turned much longer than she had anticipated. She stretched a bit, turned and froze, much like the cat. There, behind trees, was a small cottage she had not seen when she had passed it the first time with a slightly overgrown path leading to the boat shed. For a while she considered her options and then decided it would be worth at least a look. The cat followed her, still alert.

  
As she neared the building she noticed all was not well even for an old summer cottage. The door was hanging off of its hinges and the front stairs... there were strange, brownish tracks slithering all over them, as if something (or someone) had been dragged over the steps. She knew she should turn back at this point and definitely not go nearer, but something drew her towards the cottage.

  
Maybe just a quick peek? If Aarno had the rash then by now he'd probably be nearing death and she was safe with her breathing mask. She kept as quiet as possible as she walked around the house to a small window and looked inside. The cottage was indeed tiny, one room was all it had, and there was nothing here except... except some kind of reddish brown slime covering on side of a wall and what must once upon a time have been a bed. There was not a sign of Aarno.

  
She thought she had heard of this. No doubt the others had heard something about it as well, although of course they were just tall tales people liked to tell when they were already scared her rational part added in. Stories of the rash turning some people into... not people. Anna shook her head a little, it wasn't like her to believe such things. The cat appeared from behind a corner and something about her reminded Anna of a soldier on a patrol. She smiled at the cat, turned around, motioned her to follow and for some reason the cat understood her meaning. Or who knew, Anna thought, maybe it simply felt like doing so, one never knew with cats. In any case no matter what had happened here it was crucial to get back to the others as soon as possible and inform them.  
Somewhere down the road came a strange, loud sound of metal dragging along asphalt.

 

DAY 14, EVENING

The cars were packed. A lot of things would have to be left behind and this caused some heated discussions between Guðrún and Ella, but for most everything was ready. The men were working at the roadblock on the south side using the other car to tow it apart just enough so they could pass it. The noise felt unbearably loud and somehow Guðrún found herself hoping they wouldn't make so much of it. It didn't really matter now though, she concluded, they'd soon be on their way. If someone heard them and tried to make their way here they'd find the cat and nothing more.

  
Wait.

  
"Where's Anna?"  
Ella kept rummaging in the trunk, trying her best luggage tetris tricks. Guðrún repeated in a louder voice: "Anna. Anna hasn't returned yet!"  
"We... we can't wait for her for long. We must go. Now!"  
"Shouldn't someone go see what's keeping her? I could send the children to quickly run over and -"  
"NO. No. Look." Ella took a deep, shaky breath. "The sea is not that far away, and how long has it been since we saw Aarno? Anna's been gone all day and the last we know of them they both went over... there."  
"You think something might have happened to them?" Even as the words left her mouth Guðrún knew they sounded amazingly stupid, Ella was right, Anna should have been back already a long, long time ago.  
"Yes, and if you think they're both juuuuust fine then you're even stupider than you look. No offence", Ella continued, "but really, you have to admit the facts. Besides... besides she's... old..." her voice trailed off.

  
Guðrún paused for a moment to digest this. After a while she said carefully:  
"You're really scared aren't you?"  
Ella slammed the car trunk shut with a bit more strength than necessary and turned away, blinking furiously. Guðrún wondered if she was supposed to hug her but somehow it didn't feel right. Maybe later, or maybe not.

  
Something rustled the leaves and Guðrún jumped a little. Ella's panic was catching on, she cursed quietly, she couldn't let that happen, not in front of the children. She suddenly wished Pétur and Markus would return already and tried to distract herself by shooing the children back into the car from where they tried to escape as soon as she looked away. Finally the sound of a car driving towards them caught her attention. But... wasn't it going a little too fast? She straightened up and looked over the field only to see the little Citroën zoom towards them at full speed. Then, slowly, almost as if against her will she turned to look behind her.

  
A shadow was skittering across the field, quickly, too quickly. The evening was still light enough to see, and when it came closer it was brownish-red, fleshy, its legs - if legs those were - were stilt-like and bent at odd angles. Worst of all, it was still wearing some remains of its red coat. It reached the ditch on the other side of the road, leaped over it with surprising grace and charged right at them.

  
_Aarno Metsälä_  
_\- Finnish (Swedish-speaking)_  
_\- 38 years old_  
_\- Loves fishing_

  
Daniel ran past her with a child, possibly Begga, under one arm and slapped her in the face matter-of-factly on his way. He threw her into the car while Guðrún located Siggi, frozen in shock or possibly awe at the approaching... thing. She grabbed him, ran to the car and closed the door after her a mere second before the thing - Aarno, she thought, it had a name - careened into the side of it, almost toppling the car over.

  
"Start the car! Ella START THE CAR!" Daniel was screaming on the front seat.  
"I can't DRIVE!"

  
Guðrún sat up on the back seat and turned to look at what remained of Aarno. It was taking a few spidery steps sideways, no doubt planning to ram the car again. The torn sleeve of the coat was dragging limp on the ground.  
Daniel was barking orders at Ella who was doing all she could to learn the basics of a car in a matter of seconds. She stepped on the gas and the car shot backwards just as the creature lunged at it again, smashing into its face and sending it flying backwards a few metres where it fell on its back, bony legs spinning as it tried to turn around again.

  
"Ok, good, that was the reverse, let me fix that for you" Daniel's voice sounded unnaturally calm. The creature got to its side and made an odd noise - something between a retch and a cough - and something black and heavy flew out of its maw, a rubber boot.  
"Was... was Anna wearing..." Guðrún began but didn't get to finish the sentence. Ella had finally figured out how going forward at full speed worked and didn't even look back.  
"Yes, she was." Daniel replied instead. "I don't think we have to go find her now."  
I don't think you mind very much, Guðrún thought, surprised at the cold anger that swiftly took the place of panic. Still, the children were here. Her first responsibility were Begga and Siggi and as the car turned to follow the road she stared at the little path leading towards the sea for as long as she could until it disappeared from view.

 

  
DAY 14, EVENING

The cat turned into an almost spherical ball of fluff.

  
Anna hobbled through the trees just in time to see what was going on. The other car speeding towards the gas station and a dull thud of something hitting metal. Another car started and now she was near enough to see the creature fly on its back, the car speeding away and the other one executing a perfect three point turn to follow it. The thing - Aarno - got back to its many legs and scurried after the cars. Something told Anna it wouldn't chase them for long though and quickly, without thinking, she scooped up the cat and wrapped her in her shawl so she wouldn't suddenly bolt and run away.

  
Her fingers met something and she dug into the cat's neck ruff, finding a red collar. On it stood the name Mari and a phone number, no longer useful. Anna sneezed twice, as silently as she could, and felt oddly accomplished: when things were going badly wrong at least being able to name every part of the situation made a big difference. She returned to the cover of trees and the cat seemed to calm down though it still kept an eye on where Aarno had last been seen.

  
Among the first signs of autumn approaching were the evening mists that rose into forests, fields and the shore. First tendrils were now seeping out from between the trees. It was good, it would soon hide her, she thought and kept a steady pace as she limped back towards the boat shed now almost hidden by the fog. There were a few days worth of food stored in the boat, not much but it would do for the two of them. The cat had settled down and was taking a nap in her arms, Mari, that was her name. They would go to Hille.


End file.
